Day 5- Fort Bragg to Redwood Natl Park, CA

This morning we woke up to a VERY chilly and wet tent at our coastal campground spot just north of Fort Bragg, CA. I had to sleep completely under the sheet, the blanket and two sleeping bags with one nostril hanging out to breathe or else freeze to death… the entire side of the tent closest to the ocean and the rain fly were completely wet… that made it even more challenging to break down and pack up camp in the low 40’s temps.
This is foggy northern coastal CA in the morning…


We left camp and ventured north stopping for breakfast in Garberville, CA… very expensive egg and pancakes needless to say served by again more hippy-types… I felt kinda nasty waking up this morning and not showering… and I thought my hair was greasy-looking? Puh-leeze! I am a good 4 days less of taking a shower than most of these people around these parts… I have never seen such dirty looking, grungy people in my life and it seems like every town we go through is just crawling with them!
Anyway, we spent the next few hours again driving winding, curvy, narrow road conditions on Hwy 1 but finally entering redwood country. We just gawked up at these massive tree trunks as we curved in and out of them.


We finally made it back to 101 and then to Eureka… after a pretty bad Chinese food lunch (who makes Moo Goo Gai Pan with brown sauce and what looked like sea kelp for crying out loud?) we ventured into the Redwood National Parks area… we kept seeing signs about all the wild elk but never really saw any until we got to the National Park Ranger Station and the whole pack of them seemed to be hanging out there!


We found a nice campground right in the middle of the Redwood National Park… it is amazing how big these trees are… oh, and this time for camping out at our third campground we bought firewood… see Mike setting up camp… now we just need the s’more fixings to complete the outdoor experience… oh well, maybe when we hit Oregon.

This tree was right across from our campsite...

This tree is right next to our tent...

Day 4- San Fran to Fort Bragg, CA

Day 4- San Francisco to Fort Bragg, CA

After a wonderful breakfast at our hotel, we left San Fran to head north on the PCH. We even managed to get lattes at the Starbucks around the corner on our way out… After maneuvering our way through the city we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge which was an outstanding view. We stopped to take photos of the bridge and Alcatraz in the distance…

The next few hours were spent driving any where from 10 to 40 mph on the most narrow, winding mountainous part of Hwy 1 you can imagine. When we were following the coast closely, the views were breathtaking.


Every so often we would see people parked on the sides of the highway taking in the beach or surfing the ocean. At one of these particular beaches, we enjoyed a good laugh at the expense of some surfer changing out of his wetsuit exposing us to not only his “moon” but he included two other “smaller orbiting objects” with it- if you know what I mean! Next, we had lunch at a roadside deli and witnessed some of the locals with their children… let’s just say that I learned today why California is a blue state. Every where we go the locals are some of the most tree hugging, free loving hippies, burnouts, and free spirits this Georgia girl has ever seen! Their clothes seem dingy and tattered, their hair is stringy and long, tattoos are a must, and they are all very into natural and organic every thing. Make love, not war dammit! I have also noticed that we have not seen ONE Baptist Church YET on this pilgrimage… must be a Southern thing I guess? We did see another lighthouse today and more seal lions…



And let’s not forget to mention the cyclists… these poor souls are hoofing it on their bikes with saddlebags up these same mountainous roads that we are DRIVING! I can only imagine what their spandex smells like after a day of bicycling these roads (considering how toxic Mike’s shorts are after one hour of mtn biking!)…
And finally, we watched the most beautiful sunset yet…



Check out my California Surfer-doo...

Day 3- Big Sur to San Francisco, CA

Today, the 3rd day of our Tour de PCH we woke up in a very chilly tent with the Pacific Ocean crashing as our background music. We quickly broke down camp and took off bound for San Franscisco. We spent several hours driving up the PCH through the rest of the Big Sur area along the rocky, jagged coast of CA by many farms of cattle, pumpkins, strawberries and artichokes... The sea otters bob along the kelp patches along the way in the water too... The landscape is just breathtaking with the colors of the land and the neverending shoreline of Pacific Ocean beauty.

We did stop at the Pigeon Point Light House for pictures...

We stopped in Carmel, CA for breakfast at the Black Bear Diner... very good coffee and food...
We finally made it to San Francisco around 2:30pm and checked into our hotel. We ventured into the city on the subway. We rode the cable cars to the Fisherman's Wharf area. The tourism business is booming in this town... what truly amazes me is the amount of foreigners here... I felt like we were the only two people in San Francisco speaking english... Our favorite part of the Wharf was the sea lions...

They sit or lay out on these floating docks in the bay and just sleep or bark... the loud barking of that many sea lions is pretty noisy to say the least... Mike thinks they look like Sampson with fins... maybe we should get a sea lion to go for us to take home for Sampson to play with?

Day 2- Big Sur, California

On our second morning (yesterday) we left LA to cruise up the Pacific Coast Hwy (PCH)… our destination being the Big Sur area of the coast. After all the traffic we endured last night, we managed to hit traffic AGAIN at 7:30 am on Saturday morning! We made it to the PCH and veered northward. One thing I did forget to mention was that there is a Starbucks on every corner of LA and when we finally decided to stop at one along the PCH, the line was 20 people deep… so we opted for no lattes and hit the road. It pretty much rained on us the entire way through the north LA area beaches, Malibu, etc. Once we got to Santa Barbara, we stopped and ate lunch in downtown. The lobster bisque was awesome… the oysters were not what we expected…
A funny thing happened while we were window browsing the downtown Santa Barbara shops… we walked up on a small anti-war protest parade… there were 9 total people parading and carrying anti-war, anti-Bush signs and singing to a boom box playing John Lennon’s “Imagine”… I just busted out laughing when I saw them… they were the some of the scariest dressed 9 folks you could imagine attempting to protest and be heard. I should have taken a picture…
Another thing I realized today about California is that there is graffiti EVERY where! And I mean every where… we even saw some temporary silt fencing in the middle of a lemon farm and there was graffiti all over it! Oh yes, we must have passed 100’s of acres of lemons, strawberries and grapes along the way too. And then there were the zebras… yes, folks someone along Hwy 1 near San Simeon raises zebras on his cow farm…



We did finally make it to the campground we found on the Internet. It is right in the middle of Big Sur and the Los Padres National Forest. We pitched our tent and then hiked down the cliff side to watch the most beautiful view and sunset on the Pacific Ocean. Yes, we finished up our 1-year anniversary watching the sun set over huge waves crashing on the rocky cliffs and beaches…The thousands of sea otters bouncing around in the kelp patches makes for great scenery too! All in all, it was a wonderful 1-year anniversary for us covering over 300 miles today up the west coast and now typing this blog from our tent in Big Sur… until tomorrow…

This is the view from our campground...



What a beautiful sunset we enjoyed...

Happy Anniversary to us...

Day 1- Los Angeles, California

We arrived at 11:20am PST in LA today... after a most uncomfortable plane ride from Atlanta... yes SOMEHOW I got stuck in a middle seat again... I Hate middle seats... You cannot get comfortable and this was my torture for over 4 hours today... we got our bags and headed to got our rental car...



Check out the GMC Arcadia... nice but smelly... sadly smelly at only 3,800+ miles... please do not get me started on the lack of respect most people have for rentals...

Next we navigated our way onto the interstate towards Hollywood... and we find ourselves in TRAFFIC... nice! I thought we left that in Atlanta!



The only wildlife I could find in this town was this...



We ventured to Beverly Hills from Hollywood just trying to find some place to eat lunch and finding a parking place is hell in this town... We quickly learned after $15+ for diner hamburgers along with a $12.50 parking fee for lunch that this place is not cheap at all. The traffic is brutal and it seems that the city is just not quite big enough for all of the residents that live here. I guess you could say that we were not too impressed with the whole Hollywood/CA dazzle and lights... too many people, not enough parking, too many fees, too much traffic and every thing just looks dingy...

We did pass by Rodeo Drive along the way to our hotel down Wilshire...



We did meet up with our old pal, Andy... he took us to a genuine sushi bar in Chinatown... here we are... the happy couple on the Eve of our 1-year Anniversary...



Tomorrow brings a long travel day for us... rise and shine early and heading towards Big Sur, CA...

I'm Going Back to Cali...

Tomorrow we leave for our vacation and I could not get out of the office fast enough this evening! Now I am home and trying to figure out what to pack for this PCH tour... the weather internet site shows temperatures all over the place and then there is the wind... and the fact that we are camping every other night makes it a tad more difficult to plan the vacation wardrobe... Oh well, I am sure if I need something along the way, I can always go shopping!!

No good update info on my grandmother after her follow-up appointment this morning... they ordered some more tests for her to do tomorrow to further investigate her problems... I am hopeful they will have some answers soon...

I will try to post some pics on here along the way from our trip... keep checking each day for updates...

The west coast will never be the same!!

Reality Bites... Again and Again and Again...

I am exhausted today... after my day yesterday, exhausted is probably not even the right word to describe my condition today. I arrived at work yesterday morning at 7:30 and decided at 9am to do a "hail mary" and left to go check on my Grandmother two hours away. Needless to say, she has not been very well for the past few days and I just cannot leave for our big vacation on Friday not knowing that she is okay and safe. On the way down there, I managed to get her an afternoon appt at her doctor's office (with another doc)... When I arrived at her apartment, she was asleep in her chair... and that is pretty much how we spent the first hour after my arrival...me sitting watching her sleep.. she just could not stay awake to carry on a conversation AT ALL. Now this is not normal for her AT ALL. Of course, I start really worrying now... I keep trying to talk to her and she says a few words and drifts asleep again. By lunch time I am panicking... fortunately she perks up for lunch... she seemed MUCH better after fried chicken and 2 HUGE helpings of sweet potato souffle... but then, after we returned to her apartment... she was actually falling asleep while walking around the room!! It was the weirdest thing I have ever seen... we go to the doctor and they order an X-ray of her hip and a cat scan of her head (I believe she fell to cause the hurt hip)... while they took blood from her before the X-ray, we ran into one of her neighbors from back home who was also in the labs area for bloodwork. She too has the same memory problems that my grandmother does... these two women, best of friends and neighbors for 54 years just stare at each other... it was a very pivotal moment for me on many levels... 54 years of friendship and today there is NOTHING there! How is that possible I think to myself... damn Alzheimer's... that seems to be the vicious culprit of every thing these days... we finished up our appointments and headed back to her apartment. After the day with her, I know in my heart that sometime over the weekend she had to have fallen and hurt herself physically and mentally... Hopefully, we will know something after she goes back tomorrow for the follow-up... I hated to leave her that evening, but I had to get back to my world... All I can do is say a prayer and keep my fingers crossed for some answers...